Marshall Boswell teaches American literature at Rhodes College, and has
published many short stories and some nonfiction professional (literary)
works/studies. Trouble With Girls is his collection of short stories
that has a common thread that runs through them all. That thread is the
main character: Parker Hayes.

Parker
Hayes, is a humdrum, middle-class sort of guy who falls in and out of love
(or lust) as fast as he buttons his shirt. What young man didn’t when he
was growing up? He loves music, and plays at being popular, vying in his
most intense moments in attaining complete hipness. His efforts culminate
in wearing gaudy teenage garments and going around with bizarre and colorful
characters that attract attention from all quarters at school.

From
early teens to manhood, we follow Parker as he fails to manage any sort of
successful relationship with girls and then women. He seeks to endear
himself to one girl, even when warned by his friend, Caleb:

“Forget about Nicole,” he assured me out
in the ocean later that same afternoon. “I already got the scoop from
Shelley, who goes to her school. Basically, Nicole only dates older guys,
seniors and shit, so she’s a lost cause. Sorry, man. You’ll get nowhere.
Trust me…”

Even
so, he worships and watches her from afar, hoping against hope for any sign
that she has noticed him. She doesn’t. Another humiliating incident
follows in a later story, when a girl that Parker invites home with him for
some innocuous (and one-night) sex, relates this line and summarily “holds
out” having sex with him:

“You know,” she whispers into my ear,
“everybody gets slammed one time or another.”

This,
she tells Parker even as she slams him, knowing that he doesn’t care for her
at all, but is harboring a ‘crush’ for another girl she knows, making Parker
feel like a “complete asshole.”

I tell
you, there’s a lot in this book: the music, the atmosphere, the
give-and-take between the adolescents, and finally between adult sexual
combatants and accomplices, makes taking in Trouble With Girls well
worth the read. One thing, though—you may be put off by some of the
ten-cent polysyllabic words. If so, keep your thesaurus near…it might come
in handy.

I’ll
give the author his due here: he put in a lot of time and energy in making a
smoothly-progressive series of stories that interlock tightly. I could
almost hear in the background the old 45’s going again—Bob Dylan and the
Stones going around and around in my head as I took in his words.